Odori Nagura

GIFU Odori NAGURA
This nagura came from a now closed up mine near the Odori river, the mines owner Yamamoto-san is now
about 76 years old and is retired. His mine produced this type of nagura named after the river, it is similar to the middle grits of Mikawa nagura and it can be used for sharpening and polishing in the middle grit ranges around 2 to 3,000 grit.

I have tested this larger piece of bench size nagura in razor honing after setting a bevel with a 2,000 grit Shapton and then following with this nagura. The scratches were easily removed within about 40 one directional strokes. I have also used a small piece of this nagura on a level 5 or 5+ kamisori toishi as a rubbing nagura stone with very good results. Again after bevel setting with a 1,000 grit King I rubbed up a milky
white slurry on the kamisori toishi to a whole milk color which easily removed all of the scratches from the 1k King, this took about 40 strokes. I found that using this intermediate nagura as a middle stone before final finishing on my regular razor hone added a dimension of comfortableness to the shave.

HUGE PIECE of ODORI NAGURA

This 10 inch long piece of pure Odori nagura toishi is a rarity. The Odori mines were close to Takayama and are no longer active. This old stock nagura is very fine and would be somewhere in the 1500 although the
slurry can break down during use into a finer cutting abrasive. An excellent alternative to a synthetic medium
grit stone because the abrasive action on the steel is "softer" meaning that the cutting particles bite away at the steel instead of grinding away with long aggressive scratches. This soft cutting action helps preserves the
edge integrity for the successive finer grit stones and leads to longer lasting edges.

Although almost identical in composition geologically, the Odori nagura is mined from a separate deposit from that of Aiichi Mikawa which are about 50-75miles away to the south/west. The Odori miners had no organized
grading or ink stamping system but the grit structure is close to those of Mikawa. In this case you just have to test them out and I offer a full money back guarantee including the shipping. This specimen would act bevel setting stone for knives or tools but it could also be used for razors although the size is out of scale.